


Foreign Hands

by Grace_d



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Family, Healing, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Love triangle drama, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mumma Katniss, Peeta's POV, Sexual Content, Weird dreams warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18120719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grace_d/pseuds/Grace_d
Summary: “What was the first favour you two traded?” Primrose asks.“That’s not my story to tell.” I reply carefully.She kicks harder at my chair leg. Scowls at the floor. It’s a familiar expression. “I don’t think you or Katniss should bother keeping secrets anymore.” She says.She’s got a point, but it’s not a secret. It’s just something precious that’s hard to explain. I look around the bakery, unsure where I would start anyway. How to untangle the way our lives orbited each other, only intersecting when things were catastrophically bad then drifting apart again. Like what happened with their father. Like after the Fire. Like everything with Madge.Like now.





	1. Reaping Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fan work, the original works and characters belong to Suzanne Collins. No copyright infringement intended. 
> 
> This work is unbeta'd, and all spelling errors are definitely my own.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/162797354@N06/33512404618/in/dateposted-public/)

I didn't think I'd feel so anxious on the first Reaping after aging out. The folded paper in my chest pocket may as well be on fire, I'm so aware of it. I pat it again, making sure it's there, still there, and try to concentrate on the ridiculous propaganda video. I should've figured they would update it, they need to exploit the exciting footage from the Third Quarter Quell, but the whole square still gasps as Madge runs across the screen again. Mayor Undersee all but collapses into the podium, supported by Haymitch, but that is the last we'll see of her today. Her death was too much, even for the Capitol. Effie stutters behind her microphone, seeming extra ruffled as she hops over to the reaping bowl. The honour of last year's second place tribute has afforded her more ridiculous clothes, but not a better district.

As for the citizens of District Twelve, we collectively shake. Last year's show of power worked, the Reaping from only politicians’ families. We know now not one child, merchant or seam, is safe and we are humbled. 

But that thought barely crosses my mind before Effie announces the last name I ever wanted to hear her say.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

Because not a single breath later follows,

"I volunteer!"

Hands clamp down on my elbows either side, as though my brothers expect me to do something. In this second I can't think of anything I could do. I’ve felt this stupefying fear before. When my sight was consumed with blazing fire and the ceiling beams started to fall. One second of complete, paralysing terror. Maybe they're holding me up. I’m not as steady as I used to be. I'm still staring at the ornate braids on the back of her head when she takes her first step. Someone wails. For a moment I think it's me. Then a second voice joins in, and Katniss's footsteps falter. 

There's confusion on the stage. District Twelve has never had a volunteer before. 

I shake myself free of my guards. To my right, I see Gale Hawthorne, head and shoulders above the rest of us, trying to shake free a tiny, dark haired girl who's screaming into his neck. In an instant, I know who the second person crying out is. I shove my way through the mass of children to where the Fourteen's stand. Primrose is on the ground, in the dust. I clamp a hand over her mouth, strangling her voice. 

"Stop Primrose." I murmur into her ear. "Katniss has to be strong now." 

She blinks up at me in confusion as I lift her bodily to her feet. She’s still tiny at fourteen. Just like her sister was. 

"Now look forward, chin up, show them that Everdeen spirit." 

Katniss has reached the stage now, and I can see her on the big screens around the square, stony faced and glassy eyed. 

Primrose swallows hard, but she blinks back her tears and nods. I tug her braids back over her shoulder, then hold my hands up to the Peacekeepers who tracked me into the crowd. Hiding my winces, I walk with them as they escort me back to the edge of the square. I think one of them pats me on the back. "Well," Effie huffs, "this is all very exciting. So much drama! What's your name and age dear?" 

Katniss' reply is inaudible to my ears, and I wish my brother's hands were still on my elbows. 

"I bet my buttons that was your sister." Effie coos. 

Katniss nods once. 

"Well you couldn't have her stealing all the glory, not when it's your last year as tribute." Effie says. 

This time I might howl. One name from freedom. 

Effie asks the crowd for a round of applause and waves her hands over Katniss like a Capitol show girl. 

No one in the crowd claps. Instead, one by one, they raise their three fingers to their lips and reach to Katniss. But I can't do it. I can't give Katniss the funeral salute. I can only stare at the woman on the stage, breeze pulling her skirt, body rigid as steel. 

"And now for the boys!" Effie says with a flourish. 

It's a young Seam boy, although Katniss shows no recognition at his name. If my birthday hadn't been last month maybe I could have volunteered. The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur. When Alek pushes me, there's almost no one left in the square to see me stumble. No one wants to linger on Reaping day. 

"Get in there." He shoves me towards the Justice Building. It’s the second time I’ve gone to say goodbye to a tribute in as many years. 

* * *

I register with the Peacekeepers in the entrance way, and I’m unsurprised it’s just me left. I’m a little late. The other boy’s family sit against the other wall, his father with coal edged tears running down his face, holding two younger children close to him. Almost too young to understand what’s about to happen to their brother. They’re wide eyed and frightened, their whispers echoing in the hall. 

I reach into my pant pocket and pull out the packet of sugar cookies I’d grabbed this morning. Walking over, I crouch before them and offer it to them. I don’t say anything, and neither do they, because, what can we say. The father gives me a tired nod and I return it. I’m sorry for his son. I feel his loss, but not his resignation. 

With a bang the doors beside me fly open and Gale is dragged bodily out of the room by two Peacekeepers, yelling for Katniss to remember something. He’s scaring the kids. But his words are left choking his throat when the doors are slammed in his face. Staring at the polished wooden carvings, his shoulders slump. He doesn’t even resist when one Peacekeeper pulls him down the hallway by his sleeves, while the other waves me in. 

I slip through the door quietly and close it behind me. The waiting room is the most ornate place I’ve ever been in. Everything is a rich red, the walls, the shelves of books, the couches. She’s facing the window, framed by velvet curtains, her slim spine still ramrod straight, but I can see the trembling in her arms. I suck a deep breath and realise I have no idea what to say. I pull the paper out of my top pocket. 

“We have to stop meeting like this.” I say finally. 

She whirls around. “You came.” 

“Well, you know, these hopeless situations really have a way of bringing us together.” I say. 

She lets out a choked laugh and it nearly undoes me. 

I take a step nearer to her, holding out the folded paper I have been carrying with me. 

“This is for you” I say clumsily. 

Our fingers brush as she takes it from me, and I feel the jolt all the way to the base of my neck. She clutches it against her stomach. 

“Madge kissed me last year, just over there.” She nods towards the ornate red couch. “It was my first kiss.” 

I don’t know what to say. I’d known about Madge’s feelings, recognised them from their twin in me for years. We’d even spoken about them, in abstract terms, between throwing punches and practicing shoulder pins. 

I can’t believe Katniss had never kissed anyone else. 

“I was so angry at her.” She continues, “I didn’t understand how she could do that to me. But now I’m here and I think I get it.” 

We stand in silence for a second, both thinking about the soft blonde girl we’d tried to turn into a warrior. 

“I’ll look out for Prim until you come home. See that she eats.” I say. 

“No,” Katniss shakes her head. “I have an agreement with Gale for that.” 

“Oh.” Of course she’s arranged this with Gale. He’s a provider. A hunter. Her Partner. We stand in silence for a moment until she clears her throat. 

“I need something else from you Peeta.” She says. A favour. That’s the way it always is between us. It will be the first time she’s asked me outright for something though. 

“Anything.” I breathe. 

“The Seam will crush her eventually. The healing work..” Katniss’ voice cracks but still no tears fall. “I need you to give her some,” she looks for the word, “joy.” 

I’m shattered. Millions of pieces of me fall to the ground and remake me on this same spot. 

“Katniss,” I don’t know what to do so I move before her, hold her elbows and lean my forehead against hers. We’ve never been so close before. I look straight into her eyes. 

“I’ll be a good friend to her.” I promise. 

It’s too much. She twists violently away from me, tears spilling onto her cheeks. I grip her more tightly. 

“Hey wait,” I say gently. “What about my return favour?” 

We have a balance that needs to be maintained after all. Our bargains always seem to be made around moments of despair and death. That’s how we operate. Circling each other constantly, only allowed to intervene when one of us is about to tip off the edge into an abyss. 

She looks almost frightened, but faces me. Her chest is heaving and I can tell she’s about to fall apart. I move my hands to her shoulders. A small part of me feels awe that I’m touching her like this and she’s allowing it. 

“I need you to listen to me. Take a deep breath. In, and then out. And repeat. Imagine you’re in the woods, dappled green light over your face, trees rustling in the wind. Breathe in, and out. And as you do, remember. You are going to take all this pain and love you feel right now, and use it to fuel your fire. And then you are going to burn bright, and strong, and move fast and shoot straight.” I say, and I keep talking. 

I know we only have moments, but it feels like eternity in that room, her breath on my face, my words spilling out. I'm terrified for her, frozen deep down into my bones but my words flow out like sparks thrown out of a firepit. I move my hands to cradle her face and I talk endlessly at her, words about strength and courage and determination. I tell her how she’s the trees, the wind, the stars. I pour all my love into the words and out over her, but I never say it, because how can I, now, just before she leaves. That's not fair to either of us. I’m afraid some of it leaks out anyway. 

Then there is a soft knock on the door, and a red-haired Peacekeeper swings the door inwards. Katniss blinks once, as though coming out if a trance. He gently holds his hand out to her. As if they are friends. Oh Katniss, I think, the effect you have on us. She nods to him, and I step back. She catches my falling hand, and cradling it, kisses my palm. I don’t know why she does that, but her eyes are starlight now and they scorch me. 

“Shoot straight.” I say again. Then she turns and walks from the room, head high, eyes dry. I curl my fingers like I could hold her kiss there forever. 

* * *

I stare at the empty door for a moment, until a familiar form staggers past. Then I’m bounding out, as fast as my lame leg can take me, until I catch Haymitch and spin him around. 

“How can I help her?” I demand. He reeks of cheap liquor and body odour. I reek of desperation. 

“You can’t.” Haymitch says. 

I growl and pin him to the wall with my forearm. He takes a swipe at me but I bat his hand away, grabbing and twisting his wrist until he’s rolled around, the side of his face smashed into the wall. 

“Try again.” I say. “She’s smart, she’s got the skills, she can do this, she just needs some support. So, here’s one more for the support team.” I back off the pressure slightly. I don’t want to kill Katniss’s new mentor. 

Haymitch raises an eyebrow and motions to his pocket. I release him and he removes his flask, sipping it while eyeing me off. 

“Okay, Mr Short, Fair and Stocky.” he says. “You wanna help her? If she gets to the top eight, they’ll come here to interview someone. When they do, make sure they make her interesting. Real interesting. The sponsors just want a show. Make them want more of her.” 

“Okay.” I nod. “When she gets to the top eight, I’ll make her unforgettable. You work it from your end.” I offer him my hand. He shakes it once, smirking at me the whole time, then wanders off down the hall. 

When he gets to the end he pauses and turns back. 

“Hey boy,” he shouts. “Ever think of volunteering for real?” 

I give him the finger and hope he can’t see how I’m shaking from that distance. 

* * *

By the time I hobble home I’m exhausted. I waited for the train to leave, then I think I stared down the tracks for a while. Every nerve in my body is stretched to the end of their fibre, and I feel like one more spot of dust on my skin will tear me apart. 

So of course Alek is waiting for me beside the apple tree. That apple tree, its trunk now coarse and black. The witness of many important, devastating moments in my life. 

“How was it?” He asks. 

I look at him with empty eyes. 

“Wanna wrestle?” He bounces on the balls of his feet, swinging his arms beside himself as if in anticipation. He’s almost my mirror in every way, except this. Our blue eyes match, our ashy hair, even our frame. But even now it’s just Leif, him and I left, his blunt, cocky nature can’t be contained and I just can’t deal with him right now. “Come on Peeta,” he says. He grabs my shirt, pulls me unwillingly to our old wrestling square beside the tree. The one that hasn’t been used since I finished training Madge. 

"Don't touch me," I snarl, fisting my hands in his shirt, ready to push him down, ready to punch him in the face. Then I'm pulling him against me, sobbing. I cry into my brother's shirt until long after the sun sets. 

* * *

I dream of Madge Undersee drowning again. When her lips finally turn blue her eyes open and they’re grey, and it’s not Madge that drowned, it’s Katniss. She lies still as I trace her with my pencil, drawing the bones under her skin, the veins, arteries and muscles as she fades to ash in all the places I touch. 


	2. Parade Day

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/162797354@N06/33512404618/in/dateposted-public/)

The next morning I’m up well before dawn, pounding dough into the work bench. The grain of the counter top isn’t yet embedded with flour dust, and the coarse surface catches the dough. A soft knock on the back entrance stop my heart. I stare at wooden door, freshly painted green. Surely it’s a ghost out there, Katniss haunting me in the District all the way from the Capitol. We’re familiar with ghosts here at the bakery after all. But no, the knock comes again, and it’s too shy for Katniss’s phantom knock. I swing the door open, and Primrose stands on our back step. My jaw drops. 

“Is this not okay?” She asks, immediately taking a step back into the dark. “She said I should come. I brought some goat’s cheese.” 

For a second, her skin looks deathly pale and I think of Madge, how the hysterical Victor from Four tried to revive her just moments after he'd held her head underwater while she thrashed. He had cried over her cold skin, refusing to let the hovercraft take her until he'd been sedated. She shifts and it's not Madge, it's just Primrose. 

“No!” I hold my hand out, wave her into the kitchen. “We just don’t often get visitors, or traders, this early.” I shoot her a side look. Is it possible she has lost weight since yesterday? No, I decide, it must be a trick of the shadows under her eyes and the effect of her sister’s oversized hunting jacket. Her hair has been half ripped from her ornate braids she wore yesterday. “Have a seat.” I pull a wooden stool over. 

She perches on the end of it, ready to flee at any moment. I stick to other end, mindful to reduce the force which I pound the dough. It’s quiet except for the noise I make. I watch as she looks around, taking in the whitewashed walls, the oversized cold box in the corner, the large sacks of different coloured flours piled by the door. I wonder what her sister said about me, that Primrose feels comfortable coming to my back door before the sun rises. We aren’t exactly strangers, although our last meeting around a kitchen table was very different. 

There’s milk warming on the stove for the yeast bread, and I pour her a cup of it with some cinnamon and honey in it. When she takes it her hands are small and unsteady. It’s a stark contrast to how firm and strong they looked last time I studied them, deftly rolling bandages and making small stitches in my flesh. 

“I didn’t sleep.” She whispers into the room, so soft I almost miss it. 

“Me either.” I whisper back. 

She sits silent for a few more moments as I place the dough in my hands in a bowl and cover it with wet tea towel. I tip the warm milk and yeast mix into another bowl, and crack eggs and mix in dry ingredients. When I tip it onto the generously floured bench she asks what I’m doing. As I work I take her through the process, explaining how the bread is made, making little baker jokes that go right over her head. Talking like this connects me back to the world for the moment. Primrose grins at me laughing at myself. The kitchen is warming with the ovens and the rising sun streaming in the window when Alek crashes down the staircase. 

“Oi jerkoff, you turned my alarm off!” He slides into the kitchen in his socks and smacks into the bench. 

Primrose freezes in alarm, one foot already off the stool. I swear I’ve seen the same look on her sister, always ready to jump out the next window. 

“Primrose, this is my brother Alek.” I nod to him and subtly draw him around the other side of the bench. “Alek this is Primrose. She came to trade cheese this morning.” 

“Cheese is my favourite!” Alek claps his hands together softly, voice several tones softer than his staircase insults. “What did you trade?” 

I gesture around the kitchen. “There’s nothing to trade yet.” 

“Oh, day olds are fine.” Primrose is still on her stool but she’s retreated now. Shy. 

“Rubbish.” My brother snorts. “Let’s see the goods.” 

She fishes a hunk of cheese from the jacket pocket. 

Alek examines it. “Did you make it yourself?” He asks, complimenting how fine it is, testing its softness. 

Between the three of us we settle on a trade for buns, but Alek insists we bake two with cheese inside and eat them for breakfast. As we get to work on the other prep for the day, faster now with four hands, Primrose settles back into her chair. We don’t mention the Games, or ask after Mrs Everdeen. Alek covers for me in the moments I think of Katniss and the bottom drops out of my stomach. Between us, bantering back and forth, we keep Primrose smiling. She leans her elbows on the bench. 

She is so alike her name. A small sunny patch in the corner of our kitchen, glowing gold with the flour in the air and her crazy hair haloing her head. Alek has noticed it too, and when she’s not looking, he jerks his head towards her, motioning his hands over his head. I shrug at him. I’m not going to embarrass her about being dishevelled after a day like yesterday. 

“Alright ragamuffin.” Alek announces dramatically. “Time for you to pull some weight around here.” 

“I brought the cheese!” Primrose protests. 

“I’ll let you keep two cookies if you help me make them.” He counters. 

Primrose hops off the stool. Alek gently pushes her back up. 

“First things first. Hair’s got to be tied back. We have enough trouble keeping Pretty Peeta’s curls out of the dough let alone all this.” 

She giggles. “He is pretty.” 

I nearly collapse into the counter at her giggle. Maybe we’ll all survive this after all. 

Alek flings the comb in his back pocket towards my head. I catch it on reflex, scowling as I realise it’s my comb, and I’ve now covered it in flour. “That’s why he’ll be doing your hair not me.” 

I wash off the comb and my hands, shrugging at Primrose. She’s glaring at me now. 

“I don’t need a replacement sister.” She announces. 

Alek grabs an armful of cooling loaves and hurries out the front. I pull up a stool next to Prim and sit heavily. 

“I know.” 

“Why did she tell me to come here Peeta?” 

I smile at her bluntness. “Your sister and I have been trading, uh, favours, for a while now.” 

“And you’ve traded enough favours that she can ask you to babysit her fourteen year old sister while she’s in the arena? Maybe forever?” Her bottom lip is wobbling. 

“Primrose,” I sigh. “Your sister and I haven’t exactly been trading normal favours.” 

“What do you mean?” She wrinkles her nose. “EW. Wait. Are you and her?” 

I laugh, even though it feels awful. 

“No, more like, life or death favours.” I say. I raise my left pant leg exposing the webs of shiny scars around my ankle. “You remember this right? Your first serious burn victim didn’t you say?” 

“Survivor.” She absent-mindedly corrects. Then her eyes widen. “She found you under the tree. Then she sat with you the whole time after.” 

“So I heard.” I say. 

We sit in silence for a while, Alek banging shelves out front. 

“You know she only left when I did your dressings to vomit. She hates nakedness.” 

“To vomit?” 

“Yeah.” She says, then adds, “The vomiting was because of your wounds, not your nakedness.” 

“That’s…better? I think?” I say. 

“She’s pretty squeamish for such a such a lethal person.” Primrose says. “So that was the first favour? And this is the payback?” 

“No. It’s been going on a while longer than that.” I admit. 

She thinks about this, kicking at the leg of my stool. “What was the first favour?” 

“That’s not my story to tell.” I say. 

She kicks harder at my chair leg. Scowls at the floor. It’s a familiar expression. “I don’t think you or Katniss should bother keeping secrets now.” 

She’s got a point, but it’s not a secret. It’s just something precious that’s hard to explain. I look around the bakery, unsure where I would start anyway. How to untangle the way our lives orbited each other, only intersecting when things were catastrophically bad then drifting apart again. 

“Who gave it then? And when did it start?” she asks. 

“I did. About eight years ago.” I offer. 

She must know what I’m referring to because her skinny frame knocks into me and I’m enveloped in a hug. I hug her back. For a second we cling to each other in the overly warm kitchen, then she steps back. 

“Okay, you can do my hair. Can you even do hair?” She asks. 

“I braid bread. Is it any different?” I reply. 

It turns out it’s very different, and we open the shop twenty minutes later than usual, but as Primrose skips out the back door, a crooked braid over each shoulder, she turns and calls, “Call me Prim.” 

* * *

The rest of the day fills with general shop things, the way it is now. The work of five being done by three. Leif stick his head in to tell me he’s heading home. He’d stay but his wife is very pregnant with their first child, and it’s too much for her to come over to visit and be home before curfew. I scrub the kitchen down obsessively, wiping out the ovens multiple times. We'll never know what caused the fire, but I'm sure it was my fault somehow. My guilt has driven me to be compulsive. When I start sweeping for the second time, I know I’m just avoiding this evening and it won’t work. 

Upstairs, Alek has assembled something resembling dinner, open face sandwiches on crusty bread. We might be up to our ears in debt to the Capitol, but we decided no more stale bread. We’ve suffered enough. Unfortunately, he’s laid them out in the living room, and the television is already on. Mandatory viewing starts in twenty minutes anyway. 

“Cutting it close.” He comments. I know he’s just gauging my mood. I’d hardly be late even if he had to holler for me down the stairs. I sit on our threadbare couch in silence. It still contains the faint arid smell of smoke. Like everything in this apartment. All day I’ve avoided the thoughts of tonight’s tribute parade, when I can’t deny that Katniss isn’t at home in the Seam tonight because I’ll see her in my living room, in the Capitol, dressed up and on show. I thank small mercies that District Twelve still has the stylist team of Cinna and Portia, the ones responsible for Madge’s unforgettable Quarter Quell parade. She wore a gown of smouldering coal that made her look as though she was burning from the inside out. I don’t know how they’ll top it, but I desperately hope they can. 

The viewing starts, with the usual fanfare. The commentators make their usual inane observations as we’re treated to close ups of various ridiculous looking people sitting in the VIP boxes. Psychedelic is on trend this year, and people are more varied shades then usual. My fingers twitch considering the material they might have on hand to create such an array of colours. One woman has an elaborate three dimensional pattern on her face that’s particularly mesmerising, and I pull out my sketch book to try to capture it. 

The music increases and District One rolls out. As usual their tributes are strong and glamourous looking. I make a quick sketch of the boy and girl and note their names. I try to guess what their skills might be from their postures, but both the boy and girl are throwing ridiculous kisses and winks so I can’t pick up anything. The tributes from Two this year look brutal, their hulking frames popping out of their shiny jumpsuits. They glower at the crowds. The boy from Three looks twitchy and his district partner terrified. 

Alek and I trade comments as the parade continues, trying to figure out who are the major threats. As the parade rolls on I’m surprised by how young some of them seem. The District Eleven tributes are particularly striking. The male tribute, Thresh, is enormous, the stadium lights bouncing off his dark skin, throwing his thick muscles into sharp contrast. I sketch him quickly. Beside him, the girl tribute Rue is a wisp. She looks younger than her twelve years. I want to linger on my impression of her face, her dark eyes are so expressive as she gazes at the crowd and waves shyly. 

Then the District Twelve tributes are up. Firelight flickers from deep in the entrance tunnel, growing stronger until the carriage emerges. 

“Shit.” Alek says. 

They are on fire. My eyes go to Katniss first, dressed in a black bodysuit that hugs her lines, bright flames licking up a cape on her back to her shoulders. She wears a crown of flames like a halo ringing her face. She has her arm around her district partner, Abel, I learn his name now. She standing over him protectively. For all the world they could be siblings with their dark colouring. He’s lit up too. As the carriage rolls towards the amphitheatre she leans towards him encouragingly, smiling and blowing kisses to the audience. Hesitantly, he follows her. The crowd screams at them, reaction shots showing men and women leaping over each other to catch her imaginary kisses like swirling confetti. 

“You thought you had competition before.” Alek mutters. 

I push him. 

“What!” He splutters. “She’s literally on fire right now.” 

“I know.” I say, unable to look away. “She looks like my most beautiful dreams and most vivid nightmares all at once.” 

When the speeches start, the clamour settles down. The cameras can’t stay away from Katniss and Abel, even when President Snow is speaking. The parade ends with District Twelve’s carriage fading into the tunnel again. Alek leaves me alone in the living room, while I sketch out my confusion. Katniss as a goddess. Katniss as a demon. Katniss as a phoenix. I draw until my candle burns out, and I fall into my cold bed. 

* * *

That night I dream of Katniss leaning over me, body encased in black leather, her fingertips shooting sparks as they trail over my bare skin. When I wake, my flesh is still seared, scarred and tight. Like my fever dreams, I don’t know which parts are real.


	3. Training Days

Day One of the tribute training days starts. I lose half an hour of morning prep looking at my hand. I open and close my fingers around the palm she kissed, as though the flexing of my fingers will rewind the clock and bring her back. 

It’s the same hand I once placed on Madge’s forearm after the Quarter Quell card was read, saying “I’m sorry.” 

The same hand I once used to wipe blood and tears from Madge’s face after we realised sorry wouldn’t be enough. Sorry wouldn’t win in the arena. 

The same hand I would hesitantly wave to Katniss with, when she perched on the fence of the pig pen, watching Madge and I spar, like we were both her mentoring team. 

It's the same hand I placed on Katniss’s back after, as she howled in the long grass of the meadow. 

My right hand, between her shoulder blades, as though I could anchor her to this world with the weight of my palm. Some part of me thought that I could stop her from spinning out into empty space with her friend’s soul. 

We sat like that until her voice was nearly gone, just a hoarse crackle in her throat. It was awful, and beautiful, to be so close to the fire that burned when Katniss loved somebody. To see up close the devastation it wreaks. 

When she finally lifted her head and blinked up at me she asked “Why?”. I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know what she was asking me. 

But this right hand is the same I reach towards the door when the hesitant knock comes. I’m back in the present now. I’m surprised to see Rory Hawthorne, slouching and half awake, standing next to Prim on the stoop. He’s got a game bag with him. Seeing Rory around is more common now. Katniss and Gale have been training him to share their hunting route since Gale started in the mines. 

“Didn’t want her walking by herself.” He mumbles at me. I whole heartedly agree and toss him half an apple for his troubles. He looks at it for a moment, seeming torn. Prim pokes his side. He gives me a nod, not quite meeting my eyes, and leaves. 

Prim settles herself onto a stool near the counter and I hand her a pile of washed tea towels. Ironing and folding linens and clothes is something we don’t do anymore, although it pains my neat soul. There’s so little time as it is to get the essential kitchen tasks done. She busies herself with folding them and I look her over while she’s distracted. She seems more composed today, her hair falling down her back in long sheets but brushed at least. Fatigue pulls at her shoulders. 

I pour her some milk again and offer her a roll. She accepts with a small thanks. 

“So what did you think?” she asks eventually, toying with the handle of the mug. 

I stop and brace my hands against the bench, considering my answer. 

“It was pretty incredible.” I settle on. “What did you think?” 

“I thought it was scary.” Prim says into her mug. 

“Terrifying.” I agree. 

“It’s really real now isn’t it.” She says softly. 

“It is.” I say. 

Prim begins shaking so hard it looks like she’ll come apart. It’s a terrible moment. I feel my words failing me. Prim needs my reassurance, but I’m hesitant to make promises that might not be kept. So I settle for saying what I need to hear. 

“Prim, of any of the tributes, Katniss is the most prepared for what’s to come. She’s got an advantage in there that can’t be underestimated. The careers are fighters, but Katniss is a survivor. It’s going to be hard, really hard. But you and I, we are survivors too.” I tell her. 

I think it helps. 

* * *

I take the front counter after Prim leaves for school. I’m proud when she flicks her braids over her shoulder. They hang almost evenly down her back. She pushes the door open and the bell lefts out a friendly ding. Through the glass, I see the lightness in her step and it’s enough to help me ignore the incredulous looks from the Mrs Donner and Mrs Cartwright to see a Seam girl, even a blond one, leaving the bakery at opening. 

They come in hesitantly, eyes round in stupefied curiosity as though they might find the bakery front in chaos. I smile through clenched teeth as I prepare their purchases and smoothly redirect their unsubtle fishing for gossip, sending them on their way with insincere well wishes and no new information. 

Seconds after Mrs Cartwright disappears back into the shoe shop Delly bolts out, as I expected she would. I thought she would have been over after the reaping. She’s finally aged out after all. Something we might have celebrated had things gone differently. 

An unforced smile comes to my face this time as I watch her corn silk curls bob unevenly across the square. She pauses at the door, brushing down her dress and take a steadying breath, a dramatic pantomime of a nervous young girl. She cautiously opens the door. 

“Peeta, I just heard the strangest thing from my mother.” Her eyes dart around the bakery as she shifts from foot to foot like a sparrow. 

I motion her to come around into the kitchen. This won’t be a front counter conversation. 

The door swings back and forth behind us, a strangely repetitive whumping that gets closer and closer together until the door settles on its hinges. 

“Are you okay?” Delly asks immediately. Tears well in my eyes, unbidden, like they’re being drawn out of my bones. I drop onto the bench behind me and rest my head against Delly’s middle. 

“I am most decidedly not okay Dells.” I breath against the front of her dress. 

“I’m so sorry.” she whispers as she combs her hands through my hair. “I should have come over sooner, but I wasn’t well.” 

“Feeling better now?” I ask. 

I feel her weight shift, and what might be a shrug pass through her body. 

“Dells.” I push her with my forehead. 

“I think I did this Peety.” She’s crying now. “I wished so hard it wouldn’t be me.” 

I huff a laugh, but it’s wet sounding. Only Delly still believed if you wished something hard enough you could make it come true. It never stopped her father’s drinking, or my mother’s fists. It never brought warm homes. But we still scratched our wishes into the dirt with sticks then scrubbed them out with our feet on a Sunday afternoon, hoping for a new week. 

I stopped after the bakery burnt down. 

Apparently Delly never did. 

A single drop of water hits the floor beside my foot, and it shimmers there for a moment, then bleeds into the grain. Part of my body follows it, sucking down into the wood and disappearing. 

“Hey, why don't I take the counter today?” Delly suggests, wiping her face. “My mother’s insisted I stay here for a while after seeing an Everdeen coming out of your kitchen.” 

She wiggles her eyebrows at me. 

“No way,” I laugh weakly. “You're hopeless at sums. I remember when you used to do my math homework.” 

“Don’t deflect. And I never did your math homework.” 

Delly gives me a crooked smile and goes to the sink. She takes two of Prim’s folded tea towels and runs them under cool water. She hands one to me, sits with me on the bench, and we press them against our gritty eyes. Practically a ritual for Delly and I. I relax my head back against the wall. 

“Yes you did. After the accident, when I used to take my lunch in homeroom so I could catch up on school work, but really I was just sleeping because I was exhausted. I found your little gifts.” 

“Gifts?” She asks. 

“Yeah, the leaves and feathers and stuff you left as bookmarks.” 

Loud scraping at the back door indicates that Leif has returned from morning deliveries. He pushes the door open and it’s well timed with the bright chime from the front announcing a customer. 

I lift the corner of the cloth and peek at my brother. He just shakes his head at us as he lumbers past, pushing the door outwards as he takes the counter. Picking up my slack again. 

“Peeta,” Delly says sounding amused. “I would never do sums for free. Not even for you.” 

* * *

As Katniss’s training days pass in the Capitol We catch glimpses of her on the nightly pre-games updates. She's focused, wearing her trademark blank mask, tying knots and scaling ropes. But the camera doesn't linger, doesn't show anything useful. It's just to remind us the tributes are there. Trapped in that little glass box for our viewing horror.

Prim visits every morning, and each time she requests I fix her hair for her. I’m sure she doesn’t need it, especially not from me, but I’m struck by the way both her and I are compelled together by Katniss’s demands. She’s not even here to see it, but we are obligated to keep it together in the way she instructed. 

As I fold the sections of Prim’s hair one over the other, I feel a small moment of intense connection with Katniss, while I'm following a path she's walked before, a frown of concentration on my face. 

* * *

An Eleven. Katniss scored an Eleven in training. 

I’m stunned. 

Relieved. 

Horrified. 

Katniss is a weapon, and now all of Panem knows it. 

* * *

Each night I dream of something new and strange. Younger versions of Delly and I sit together on a windowsill, stacking charcoal burnt bread into a pyramid. It glows from within like coal and we leave it there, radiating soft yellow and red embers. Delly tells me it’s a lodestar for our friends who are away, and she and I sit hand in hand long into the night. 


	4. The Interview

I'm staring at the ceiling long before the grey predawn starts to spread. I ignore the suffocating minutes that tick by before the day’s work starts, as I think about what Katniss might be doing at this moment. Sleeping, shoring her reserves, or sitting silently by a window. 

Katniss sits silent and still often in my imaginings, gazing into the middle distance and thinking of trades and snares. 

Maybe that’s unfair of me. Maybe she thinks deep thoughts, contemplates the trades made between people with their words and their secrets, maybe how the snares of our promises that bind us down to the bone, until we struggle free of them. 

Maybe she thinks of nothing. 

Sometimes, I hope she thinks of running unbound through grassy fields, laughter trailing behind her. 

I wonder if her tall hunting partner runs beside her. 

I wonder if she thinks of it as a wish or a memory. 

My own wishes end in a place that makes me feel heavy and poisonous, as they always do. I drag myself to work and pound them into the table with the dough. Could I taint the whole village, making bread in this way? 

Being moody doesn’t suit me, I know, neither does self pity, so I keep that at a different level than my day to day interactions. It’s tucked inside, left for the time I’m alone. 

I’m alone a lot. 

I bring my next predawn visitor on myself, stewing like this. 

The knock is heavy and familiar, so I'm entirely unsurprised to see Gale at the door, hand possessively clamped on Prim’s shoulder. It's been made clear before that he doesn't trust me. Not even my change in circumstance, orphaned, lame and indebted to the Capitol to the strangled end, can shift this. I'm too pale, too blond, too privileged. All true. 

Oddly, I like him just fine. 

He pushes himself inside, dragging Prim behind him. 

"Did Katniss really set this up?" He asks without preamble. 

I don’t step away, although his hostility fills the kitchen with its own kind of power, his dislike as physically present as the hot air pumping from the lit ovens. 

Once it might have intimidated me, but I recognise the front for what it is. 

"Yes and I'd like to honour our agreement." I say. "I'm not trying to overstep any boundaries here." 

"What do you get out of it?" He asks. 

Always a trade and balance with them. 

"Prim's good company, and the couple of chores she picks up here and there will really help. This used to be a five person operation and now we're down to three. Besides, I know a little about not wanting to be in someone's debt myself." I gesture to my leg. 

Gale’s eyes flick towards it then away. How can hunters so squeamish around human suffering? 

"Don't get used to it." He threatens. 

I hold up my hands in mock surrender and he leaves. 

* * *

As surely as my jealous thoughts this morning manifested Gale, it seems my self-pity has manifested more company. 

Both of my brothers are prompt in arriving for their shifts, Alek pressing a floury kiss to the side of Prim’s head while my fingers are still twisting braids into her hair. Prim blushes deeply, either from the unfamiliarity with the gesture or the fact that my brother is handsome. We all are. We were told it enough growing up. Strong and handsome, our only worthy features. 

Leif asks how I am before kicking me to the front counter. Perversely, I wonder if this is to fuel business, as the Merchant folk can’t resist seeing my face and coming to press me for rumours. 

They know only whispers about my miraculous salivation at the hands of the Everdeen women, and now the youngest daughter is in our kitchen, the eldest daughter is in the Games. Memories are not long enough nor sentiments kind enough to forget the curious tangled engagement between our families. 

Delly comes back, or rather her mother sends her in, to help me with counters. It’s somewhat flattering that Mrs Cartwright still considers me fit for Delly. I play with her corkscrew curls as she pretends to write in the sales ledger. 

Today I have the energy to look at her properly. She looks worn at from around the edges, despite an extra roundness to her face. Her springy hair, which I notice now is so different in tone from Prim’s, is heavy. She grimaces at the numbers on the page. 

“What’s the bad news Dells?” I pull another curl, watch it bounce back into place with less energy than usual. 

“The bad news in you’re still a pain Peeta.” Delly snaps. 

My hands pause, finger still half wound around a locket of Delly’s hair. Delly never snaps at me. Always gentle, we had promised. Always soft. Delly and my make-believe home we made with one another would be very different to the ones we were raised in. 

She leaves then, before I can even ask what’s wrong. She promises she’ll be back to watch the interviews with us tonight. 

* * *

Our viewing is disrupted by the Peacekeepers, rounding on houses to check everyone where they are supposed to be. It’s fine, Alek, Leif, Prim, Delly and I sit in front of the TV like obedient livestock. There’s hardly any rhyme or reason to the houses they check, but sometimes I think they have a target. It makes me laugh to think these games I might be singled out to be monitored by Peacekeepers. 

Peeta Mellark, the crippled dissident. 

Ready to bring Panem to the ground, armed with little more than his words. 

Oh yeah, the Capitol best be wary of me. 

The interviews go as they always do. Scared children desperately working an angle. Scared children in outfits that cost more than their parents yearly wages, probably looking the healthiest they ever have or will. Last year when I saw Madge, I wondered if her parents would want these pictures, the frames of her bright face for their mantel after she died. This year I guess I might know, if the trade off of seeing Katniss looking beautiful and well fed is worth the knowledge it is last time she looks so. 

Her district partner Abel is young and shy, just thirteen and yet to have his first growth spurt. By the time he has finished his interview Prim has shredded a muffin wrapper to pieces. She moves down to the floor by my feet and clamps her hands over her eyes. 

“Tell me when it’s over.” She says. “Katniss hates talking to people so much. I can’t watch this train wreck.” 

I want to tell her that she’s being dramatic, but she’s right. Katniss is not a charmer. The most we can hope for is that she won’t be outrightly hostile. 

“And now, from District Twelve, Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire!” Caesar announces. 

Katniss strides out from the side of the stage. She’s stunning. Her cheeks are fuller than I’ve ever seen them and her lips look firm. Her dress is deep ruby and covered in stones that flicker as she walks, reflecting flame coloured hues back at the audience, as though she’s kicking her way through a bonfire. 

There’s no doubt that the audience’s applause is loudest for her. Delly reaches down and pulls Prim’s hands from her face, so she can see her beautiful sister. 

“Hello.” Katniss shakes Caesar’s hand confidently and takes a seat. 

Even her sleeves, which end in a diamond shape over her fingers, throw pagan sparks at the audience. 

“Look at her hair!” Prim gasps. It’s elegantly braided in a coil around her head, with a small headdress. She looks royal, chin high and elegant. 

Alek pokes Prim’s shoulder. “I don’t think Peeta will ever be that good at braiding.” 

I hush them both because the applause has died down and Caesar is talking. 

“Now there’s so much to unpack with you, I hardly know where to start! There’s your volunteering at the Reaping, your district token, your friendship with last year’s second place tribute Madge Undersee, your score of eleven, your flaming entrance…” He trails off. 

“Oh Caesar,” Katniss laughs a little, high and bright. I’m in awe. “You make me sound so interesting.” 

“Well you are.” He flashes all his teeth. 

“Okay let’s see if I can satisfy your curiosity.” 

She’s playful, coy. I can’t believe that Katniss Everdeen is flirting on national television. She holds up her hand, counting down on her fingers. 

“One. She’s my sister, I had to.” Her eyes dim for a moment, dull grey instead of silver. She sets her shoulders.“Two, that’s personal. Three, I miss Madge every day. Four, I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to talk about the training scores. Five, I was just hoping Cinna didn’t set my hair on fire.” 

She wiggles her fingers at him. “Did I miss anything?” 

“So direct, I love it!” Caesar proclaims. 

Katniss smiles tightly and folds her hands in her lap. 

Some strange highlight around her brow frames her eyes, setting them more prominently in her face. They demand our attention. They dominate me. She’s made it clear she’s in charge of this interview. 

“So Katniss,” Caesar ask conspiratorially, “is there a special suitor waiting for you at home?” 

Katniss blushes prettily and pulls on her sleeves. “No.” 

“Oh come on.” Caesar leans in. “A stunner like you, you must be knocking them down all over the place.” 

“Well there is one man, I think, but I didn’t know it until after I was reaped.” She’s speaking softly, off to the side of Caesar, into the audience. 

They’re all holding their breaths. I am too. I lean in, as if I could touch her through the television. 

“He came to see me at the Justice Building. I think,” she bites her lip. “I think he might love me. I never thought he might before now.” 

Delly whispers my name beside me, shaking my arm. I barely feel it. I’m entranced by Katniss and her confession. 

“What's he like?” Caesar asks gently. 

“He’s beautiful, lots of other girls want him.” she confesses. “He’s strong and brave, and he showed me that I could be those things too.” 

There’s no splintering in my chest of heartbreak, just the sick mudslide of realising the inevitable. Of what I’ve always known anyway. I’d just never heard out loud from anyone but my father. Why would someone like that pick a Baker when she would have a Hunter? But still I had clung to my small dream, my one hope. It's sick and selfish to think of it now. 

“He sounds amazing.” Caesar says sincerely. 

“He is.” Katniss replies, with her middle distance gaze. 

Panem and I let out a collective sigh. Katniss on fire is stunning. But Katniss in love is as radiant as the sun. 

“Well I tell you what,” Caesar slaps his knee, leans in towards her. “You win this, go home to him, and he’ll have to say yes to you.” 

Yes, I say in my head, come home, love him, I’ll keep love you silently from inside the fence, and it will be just like it always been. 

“I don’t think that will work Caesar” she shakes her head. “If I win this, kill these children, I’ll never be the kind of person that's worthy of him.” 

I don’t know what happens after that. I bury my face in my hands and let the hot tears flow. Around me, Delly’s arms, Alek’s arms, Leif’s hand on my hair, Prim’s head on my knee. 

That’s that then. 

I cry because her treasonous comments mean that it’s unlikely she’ll come home. I cry because she never got to love Gale the way she so clearly wants to. And I cry, just a bit, because Katniss won’t ever love me. 

I’m trapped here in this bleak district, without even Katniss to hope for anymore. Weak and useless, it will amount to nothing. 

I drop my hands. I’m not useless to Katniss now though. I have a task. 

“Sorry Prim. That was a bit overwhelming.” I say. 

Her nose is pink. Now, more than ever, she looks like a fragile porcelain doll. I offer my arms and she clambers onto my lap, clinging to me like a small child. I rub my hand in circles on her back as she sniffles. 

Tactfully, everyone else drifts out of the room as Prim and I talk about anything and everything that is not Katniss until late into the night. When she starts falling asleep on my shoulder, I carry her to my bed. When I tuck her in, she grabs my hand. 

“Katniss’s love is heavy, isn’t it?” She says. 

I smooth back her hair, thinking of the way Katniss’s voice dropped when she said she had to volunteer. As if it was her duty. 

“It must be.” I murmur back. 

* * *

I slip from the couch into a dream of a softly floating boat on a black lake. Katniss sits at the bow, throwing rubies into the water. We send soft waves towards the shore. She turns to me, to ask me to row. I try. My arms strain and my chest heaves as I push the boat forward, but we only seem to spin. She smiles at my incompetence, tracing her jewelled fingertips up my neck to catch my sweat. She licks it off her fingers and tells me I taste like the sea. 

* * *


	5. The Bloodbath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: I've updated the tags on this, and there is some sexual content, as well as canon typical violence in this chapter, and moving forwards in this fic.

I wake slowly, the morning smells of heat and crusty bread filling my chest with each lifting breath. A hand cards slowly through my hair, fingers separating the strands and pressing softly along my scalp, creating a quiet moment I’ve never felt the likes of before. I hover along the edges of my sleep, unwilling to roll across into the waking world. 

Things are too hard there. 

I hum in the back of my throat. The fingers continue their rhythm, soothing across my forehead and tucking hair behind my ear. I catch the scent of rubbing alcohol and lavender, and it’s so entirely familiar and unfamiliar at once that my eyes open of their own violation. 

Mrs Everdeen draws her hand back quickly, a wariness around her face like a cat about to bolt. I turn my face into the pillow, taking a sharp inhale to clear memories of days on a cot drenched in fever, feeling rivets of sweat trickling between my cracked and flaking skin, then push myself up into sitting on the couch, my threadbare blanket twisting around me. 

“I’m sorry.” Mrs Everdeen says as I do. “You look so well. It’s not often I get to see that.” 

Her voice has a gentle music to it. Where Katniss’s is clear and strong, like the ringing of a forge, her mother’s weaves, like water trickling through the streets after the snow melt. Or at least it had always seemed that way to me, acquainted as I became with the Everdeen’s speaking around me while I existed as a half dead wraith after the fire. 

“Good morning Mrs Everdeen.” I remember my manners as I rub crust from my eyes. And so, I can’t ask her outright what she’s doing in our apartment, watching me sleep. Fragments of my dream float about me. An ink black lake. Katniss’s wet tongue on her fingertips. 

“I’m missing a daughter.” Mrs Everdeen says. “I thought I may find her here.” 

We both flinch at her awkward phrasing. Because she’s missing two daughters, and she certainly won’t find one of them here. 

She flutters her hands, a nervous, helpless gesture. 

I feel an irrational flash of anger at Mrs Everdeen as she is sitting there, looking at me with her pale glassy eyes. It’s morning now, and if that’s the case Prim has been missing a while, too long, for a fourteen-year-old girl to be unaccounted for in our district. It’s a fine time to look for her daughter once the sun is up. 

“She said she’d be with you.” Mrs Everdeen says as if replying directly to my thoughts. 

I look away. My skills in deceiving people were carefully honed over my entire childhood, hiding my contempt and fear from my own mother. Strange she never saw it, just subservience, while Mrs Everdeen sees right through me with her own opaque gaze. 

“She’s sleeping in the bedroom at the end of the hallway.” I tell her, then excuse myself to the bathroom. 

Below us, I hear the smacking of pans and thudding of feet in the kitchen, with the occasional vibration of my brother’s deep tenors. Things change, things stay the same. I don’t know how busy they are, but I’m immensely grateful they insisted I take the morning off. 

I wash my face once, twice and a third time as my brain catches up. 

It’s Day One of the 76th Hunger Games. 

In about two hours, twenty-four platforms will rise up into the sunshine, the tributes blinking like newborns. A gong will ring out and the Games will begin. And so many of them will die. 

It’s called a bloodbath after all. 

“Do you really think I could kill someone?’ Madge asked, sprawled on the ground, elbows, knees, bruised knuckles. My honest answer was severed by her vicious kick to my knee, her body over mine in a moment. Foot trapping my left arm and sharp forearm against my throat. Mad panting in my ear. Her whole body a contradiction of soft and sore, hard and tender. 

A knock on the door interrupts me. Prim’s waiting, hair plaited over one shoulder, wearing an oversized blue shirt, her thin legs sticking out beneath. 

“That’s my shirt.” I say, instead of good morning. 

“And?” She arches an eyebrow. I see echoes of her sister in the way it lifts and the creases in her forehead. 

She shoves me out of the bathroom. It’s bewildering, not in the speed that she rushes me from the bathroom, but in the whole sequence of the morning. I slide into a chair at our kitchen table across from Mrs Everdeen, feeling like the odd dancer out, without the choreography in my home. 

* * *

The Everdeens don’t leave, instead perching at opposite ends of our couch like two thin carvings, twinned in how their hands are clasped in their laps. I pull a chair in from the table rather than sitting between them. I pull chairs for my brothers as well. 

The fifteen-minute alarm sounds, compelling everyone to attend the beginning of the Games. Our television is already on, the volume lowered, the lead up commentary making a dull buzz of quips and jokes, wagers and anticipations of the start of the games. When the timer goes off the volume will automatically rise. 

We would hate to miss the full experience. 

Leif gets everyone mugs before he sits, and he hands me mine with a pat on the shoulder which sloshes water into my lap. The gesture is absurd, because I already feel my stomach pushing up into my mouth, curdling my appetite and my thirst. 

Thanks to the Hunger Games, I have a good idea about how long I can go without. Without food, without water, without a warm jacket in the desert. All these things about human biology. All those twisted, thin bodies. 

My thoughts taste like horehound leaves, puckering my mouth, turning into feral things. 

I dip my fingers in the mug of water and wipe them over my face. 

The five-minute warning sounds, and Prim begins to hiccup violently. 

She’s knotted her fingers together so they are bloodless. I look to Mrs Everdeen, but she’s in her own tense fog, captured by the countdown timer. 

I move to the couch beside Prim. I rest my hand on my knee, palm upwards, there if she’d like to take it. She looks at it for a moment, dark lashes trembling in time with the corners of her mouth, then scrambles behind me, pressing herself against the back of the cushion and threading her thin arms underneath my armpits. She presses her face into my shoulder blade. 

I am a wall between Prim and reality then. 

I want to insist she sits forwards, to pull her into my lap again like the night before. I want someone to cling to too. I just awkwardly pat her hands where they meet on my sternum. 

Mrs Everdeen is motionless. 

One minute, six seconds until the platform rises. 

They unveil the arena. The screen unfolds to a grassy field, surrounded by trees, the Cornucopia right in the middle. The weapons are centred at the mouth and I glimpse a silver bow. Right next to a spear and a rack of knives. 

It looks like a trap. 

Katniss is too smart for that. 

Please, Katniss, be too smart for that, I pray. 

The platforms rise. They show the tributes, making sure to contrast the focused faces against the unsettled, the still against the panicked. One, Nine, Four, Seven, Twelve, Five. Twelve again. The glimpse of Katniss’s face is just that, a brief glimpse. The curve of her ear, her neat braid. She’s nodding and gesturing to her right. 

Ten seconds. 

The countdown timer beeps on the screen, echoes around the field in which the tribute stand, six, they zoom out, show the full ring, four, Prim’s thin arms are a cage to my shaking inhale, three, it’s now, two. 

One. 

The gong sounds. 

The tributes scatter like ants under rain drops. The camera hesitates, waiting to plunge into the first confrontation. It’s Katniss on swift feet, reaching for a backpack at the same time as another boy. She grabs it up. They look at each other, eyes wide. 

“Take it.” She says. 

His mouth falls open, curls falling about his face, hands reaching. 

“Thank y-” he cuts off with a cough that flings blood free. 

It slaps across Katniss’s face, speckling her cheeks with red freckles. 

The boy drops. 

They cut to another tribute, the girl from Two, cruelty in the hard lines of her face, another knife already in her hands. She throws it, but Katniss is gone, running zigzags out of the field, hunched under her backpack like a shield. The knife skitters onto the ground and without breaking stride Katniss scoops it up and hits the tree line and relative safety. 

I grip my hand over Prim’s, just over my heart, feeling it hammer. No one speaks. I see the rest between slow blinks, spears flying true, machetes swinging. Screams and gasps and gurgles. 

In ten minutes it’s over, and the commentators dive in. 

An unusual number of tributes headed straight out into the wider arena this year, forgoing supplies, they tell us. The blood bath has been small. 

Some part of my mind reels at that particular word choice. Small, for five lost lives. 

Each year, I feel the Games more and more acutely it seems. Maybe it’s the cumulative loss we watch, more real now I’m old enough to comprehend, maybe it’s my own tide of urging and resisting a future that might include a family with President Snow’s fingers twisted into everything. 

Last year Madge, this year, Katniss. The weight of her loss will push me down and I’ll finally be returned to the coal dust we were birthed from. 

The Career alliance of tributes from One, Two and the boy from Four have gone on the hunt, grabbing backpacks without checking what’s in them and chasing the other tributes into the woods. A young boy from Three comes out of the tree line and starts to pry land mines from the base of the platforms with trembling fingers. Thresh, the hulking boy from Eleven, slinks through a thick plain of grass off to the side of the lake, batting away rabid looking field mice. A girl, District Eight, scrambles away, slipping in leaves. 

The arena map shows she is metres away from a tribute from Twelve. She bursts through the bushes into a clearing and Katniss drops from a tree. The girl, Jay, reels back, screeching like a wild animal. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Katniss holds her empty hands out calmly, although I can see streaks of blood browning across her hands and face. “Come with me.” 

“I can’t!” The girl wails. She turns on her heels and runs. 

The commentators start to exclaim, but the feed switches again. The Career tributes track another child down. The tall boy from Two, Cato, laughs as he drives a cruel sword between another boy’s ribs. 

The half hour timer sounds and mandatory viewing ends. The television flickers off on its own accord. 

The buzzing in my ears is overshadowed by Mrs Everdeen’s muffled sobs. Prim unlaces her arms from where they’ve locked around my shoulders and crawls across the couch to her mother. My brothers are there, and then they are not. 

Somewhere in those woods Katniss is running, hiding, looking for water maybe. Reviewing her supplies. Maybe finding other tributes. Because that- that was something I’d never seen before. 

The other Everdeens are on our couch. 

Leif comes back upstairs with flatbread, shoving food at our emotions that frighten him. 

“She looked focused.” I say vaguely to the room. 

Prim latches onto it. 

“She did, didn’t she. And I didn’t even know she was so fast. Like a fox or something.” 

“She was always the fastest at school too.” I agree. In my hands, I pull the bread my brother made to pieces. 

“And she has a backpack. And a good knife too. She’s already in the trees.” Prim lists off Katniss’s achievements so far. 

I nod, and Prim tucks into her bread with an intensity I’ve only ever seen her sister eat with. When she’s done I walk them through the back alleys to the Seam, shielded from the watching eyes of town folk. It’s quiet, and shaded. 

Prim holds my hand. I childishly want to keep holding onto her as we stop before the Everdeen’s house, but Prim’s goat bleats and she releases my hand, untethering me with the dust floating across the small yard. 

“Do you think she’s trying to collect them?” Mrs Everdeen asks me softly. “The other children?” 

I do. 

“It’s not a good strategy,” Mrs Everdeen murmurs, “unless she gets someone like that boy from Eleven. But you know Katniss…” 

I really don’t Mrs Everdeen, I think. I really don’t know Katniss. 

And yet she trusts me. Again and again, from nowhere, she trusts me. 

She left Prim’s spirit in my care, and somehow this has translated to this confusing unfolding of events, Everdeen’s in my kitchen, Everdeen’s in my apartment, Everdeen’s seeking me out for reassurances and confidences. 

Mrs Everdeen has gathered herself enough to continue. 

“You saw her interview. She’s- She’s set on not participating. On challenging them in some way. I recognised it. Her father would get the same look about him.” 

Mrs Everdeen rests her hand on my wrist, cool fingers above my pulse point. 

I am alive still. 

“I’m so proud of her. And I’m so grateful to you and Gale. She would never be able to do something so risky without you two.” 

I start to shake my head but she hushes me. 

“You’re a good man Peeta. Your father would be very proud.” She nods at me firmly before going into the house. 

* * *

I lay on the couch in a sort of haze, my fingertips trailing along the wood grain of the floor. 

Mrs Everdeen was right. Katniss has somehow collected more and more tributes throughout the day, all of them fourteen or younger. They walk and walk, searching for water. They’re slowed considerably by the boy from District Ten, who’s severe limp scraps painfully in the leaves behind him. It’s not interesting enough to hold the Gamemakers attention, and hours pass between glimpses as they trek while the Careers build a fort of supplies, guarded by landmines rigged up by the boy from Three. So clever. I hope he can turn his cleverness on them. 

I crave the boredom of watching the determined slant of Katniss’s shoulders for hours on end, leading the search for water. 

Katniss finds a river, and wades right in alone, laying on her back and drifting along with the current, the water running red through swirling tendrils of her loose hair. She washes the dried blood from her face with more blood, fresh and free between her fingers. 

A hand on my back jolts me awake. 

“Peeta, you need to eat something.” 

Delly’s red face blocks my view of the television. She hands me a sandwich and a mug of water. A whole mug. So easy and available. I stare hopelessly at it on my plate. 

“I understand Peeta. But denying yourself doesn’t help her any.” Delly nudges me. 

I feel better the second I do, the water clearing my sour mouth and my thoughts. It’s already dark outside, and in the arena. The girl from Eight is shivering under the trees. An update flashes on screen, six dead, the numbers stunning the Capitol. All deaths credited to the Careers. 

Delly sits beside me, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. I offer her half of my meal. She turns it down with an exaggerated wrinkle of her nose. She sips at my mug instead while I eat. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the start.” She says. 

“It’s okay. We had quite a crowd. The Everdeen’s were here for the mandatory broadcast.” I tell her. 

“Mrs Everdeen was here?” Delly half turns towards me now. “How was she?” 

I shrug. I don’t feel like sharing the tangle of the day with her. 

“Do you think she’s still working at the moment?” Delly asks. 

“I guess so. It’s not like the people in the Seam can go anywhere else.” 

She tucks her chin to her chest and leans over against me. She smells sweaty, and vaguely sour. 

“Love you Peety” She says quietly. 

I press a kiss to the top of her head as Alek comes up for the evening mandatory broadcast. He and Leif would have been run off their feet today without me. After tonight my grace period is done. Repayments to the Capitol are due. 

The Day One recap is brief. Flickerman complains about the lack of decisive gameplay shown by contestants. They reflect that they were spoiled by last years Games, one of the bloodiest in memory, and they show some highlights from that instead. 

Of course, they show Madge’s kills. 

Madge, who always had strawberry seeds between her teeth. 

Madge, who teased at the sensitive spot just under my left hip bone and made surprised, delicate gasps when she came. 

She killed three tributes, just like I taught her to. 

And Katniss, she killed no one today. They have a field day with her choices though. She tracked down numerous tributes, and offered them alliances, despite her Eleven in training, despite her own well-stocked backpack and a knife. They wonder about her grouping, speculating hidden talents like the mechanic from Three revealed. They speculate she will use them as fodder, a human barrier between her and the Careers. 

They avoid linking it to the subversive comments she made in her interview. 

Katniss collects Jarrod, from District Ten, the boy with the lame foot, Hannah, from District Nine, Rue, the girl with the expressive eyes, and Katniss’s district partner, Abel. Rue springs about the trees like a squirrel, running ahead of the group like an early warning system while Katniss carries her knife at the ready the whole time. 

They practice bird calls. Katniss’s voice rings clear, and they echo from the screen. I close my eyes as they repeat, memorise those three notes. 

They didn’t find water today, and Katniss hoists the three exhausted children up onto thick tree branches and ties them up there. Rue settles the fork of a branch, making her seem even more like a woodland animal. Both her and Katniss have an uncanny naturalness in their environment. 

Katniss is still sitting up, keeping careful guard, and the camera lingers on her face in the dark, her eyes glittering and wary on her face as she stares into the forest. She grips her left forearm tightly with her right hand. I block the commentators and memorise the set of her jaw, the slight softness around her cheeks that today’s trek couldn’t erase. 

Jay from Eight is killed before mandatory viewing ends. The Career pack find her from the light of a fire she sets, and she chokes slowly on her own blood. 

* * *

My dream is familiar, one where I can’t open my eyes properly, trapped in tilting shades of grey. I follow three clear notes, and it feels more like a memory than a dream. I scrabble against my own locked limbs, grunting in panic as the music fades. Stay with me, I beg through paralysed lips. Don’t leave. 

I’ll be here when you wake, a voice tells me. Always. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who's following along with this as it updates, thanks so much for hanging in there. I know updates on this one are slow.  
> I joked on tumblr that was because I can only work on it late at night, completely alone, with no lights on, listening to Half Light by Banners on repeat, swaddled in a woolen blanket, sipping from a cup full of tears, locked in a closet, in a derelict hut in the woods…  
> But really, it's because the relationships have taken a while to develop in my head (I started this with a very vague outline), Peeta's voice in this seems really specific, and I care about this fic so damn much. I do have a chapter outline completed now, and have quite a number of scenes already composed.  
> So thank you all for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
> 
> Fic title is from the song George Ogilvie - Foreign Hands  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJyihx_-XFA
> 
> I'm new on tumbr as well at @reachingforaspark .


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